Introduction
Customer Success leaders know that their efforts have a tremendous impact on the bottom line. They just can’t always prove it.
Whether it’s due to bad data or insufficient resources, there’s a blurred line between CS and revenue that prevents many B2B Customer Success teams from being properly valued in their organizations.
In Spring 2024, we asked 409 B2B Customer Success leaders to take a survey focused on how they measure the business impact of their work. We wanted to know which revenue metrics CS teams are currently tracking and what’s preventing Customer Success organizations from effectively tying their activities to revenue.
In other words: Who’s measuring what, and where are we falling short?
We also invited members of our Success Network to provide additional advice on how CS teams can better measure and report on revenue impact. You’ll see their insights featured throughout this report.
Read the results of our survey below, and please email us at hello@vitally.io to share your own thoughts about our findings.
Part 01
How Much Are CS Teams Valued in Their Organizations?
Everyone says Customer Success is important. So why doesn’t it always feel that way?
Customer Success is generally thought to be a critical function within B2B organizations, with 77% of our survey respondents saying that their companies prioritize customer success as a strategic imperative.
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of CS leaders are confident that their efforts directly impact their company’s bottom line:
But despite the obvious benefits that Customer Success teams bring to the table, they’re still competing for respect with their counterparts in the Sales team. Just over half of our respondents (53%) said their CS team receives fewer resources than the Sales team, and 25% of those respondents say that’s the case even though they generate more revenue than the Sales team.
Without Proof, CS Teams Are Vulnerable
So why does CS get overlooked at times? 67% of our CS leader respondents said they lack the proper data to get full buy-in from leadership, while 56% said that a lack of standardized metrics across the company makes it difficult to communicate the value of the CS team to leadership. (That number is 67% among respondents who don’t currently use a CSP.)
Because of this, Customer Success teams constantly have to justify their spot when their businesses experience economic headwinds. When cuts are made, CS teams are still getting hit hard.
of our respondents faced budget cuts within their CS teams in the last 12 months
of our respondents faced layoffs within their CS teams in the last 12 months
of our respondents faced layoffs within their CS teams in the last 12 months in Software & Technology
Expert Advice
We asked: Which strategies for measuring your team’s business impact are working for you now or have worked for you in the past?
Bodin Pollard
We asked: What advice can you give to other CS leaders when it comes to measuring the revenue impact of your team?
Part 02
Why It’s So Hard to Tie Success Efforts to Revenue
The root cause of “the revenue mystery,” and how it impacts everything from team strategy to job security.
Measuring and tracking impact is a key focus for CS leaders in 2024. In fact, 53% of CS leaders say metric tracking is a top challenge for their team, and 78% of CS leaders are actively looking for better ways to track revenue impact of their team’s activities.
CS leaders are especially concerned with proving impact right now because they feel their jobs depend on it. 45% of our survey respondents said that their job security is directly tied to their ability to prove the revenue impact of CS efforts; among Chief Customer Officers, it’s 64%.
Unfortunately, 28% of respondents report that they are simply unable to prove their impact, and another 41% of our respondents reported at least some difficulty in properly measuring their team’s impact to the company’s bottom line.
Expert Advice
We asked: What advice can you give to other CS leaders when it comes to measuring the revenue impact of your team?
Clean Data Is Critical
The biggest roadblock for tracking revenue impact in the CS team? Data accuracy. Our survey respondents said that the trustworthiness of their data is the #1 issue they face when it comes to tracking revenue-based metrics.
CS teams are also overwhelmed and under-resourced right now, making it harder to keep up with proper measurement habits. 51% of our respondents said that their overwhelming workload hinders their ability to measure their team’s business impact, while 38% said that a lack of proper measurement tools prevents them from properly measuring business impact.
→ Related: How to use data to make better decisions in Customer Success
This inability to tie the CS team’s efforts to revenue isn’t just a problem for the team leader’s job security. It also hinders overall CS strategy. 39% of our survey respondents say they have trouble deciding which efforts their team should prioritize due to a lack of data around revenue impact — 49% for respondents that don’t use a CSP. Without trustworthy metrics, CS teams don’t have a process to follow.
Expert Advice
We asked: What advice can you give to other CS leaders when it comes to measuring the revenue impact of your team?
Part 03
What Are Customer Success Teams Measuring in 2024?
CS leaders have lots of room for improvement when it comes to measuring revenue, but tech-savvy teams are ahead of the curve.
When we presented our panel with 12 revenue impact metrics and asked them which were the most important, these five were the most popular:
But these vital metrics are more often question marks than data points. Metrics are a major blind spot for CS leaders. Of the 12 metrics listed below, none are monitored by more than half of CS teams, although respondents from Software & Technology companies fared a little better.
In fact, the #1 “most important” revenue metric is one of the least reported and understood. A full 73% of our respondents said they did not know their NRR for the year to date, and 38% didn’t know their overall NRR for 2023.
of our respondents said they didn't know their NRR for the year to date
of our respondents said they didn’t know their overall NRR for 2023
→ Related: How to create a finance Hub in Vitally to track NRR, ARR, and churn
Expert Advice
We asked: What advice can you give to other CS leaders when it comes to measuring the revenue impact of your team?
Mary Poppen
→ Further Reading: 10 Customer Success KPIs that top CS leaders track
Part 04
How Technology Gives CS Teams an Edge in Proving Impact
When it comes to customer data, Customer Success Platforms (CSPs) bring chaos into order.
Only 45% of the CS leaders who took our survey said that their teams use a Customer Success Platform, revealing a huge opportunity for centralizing and optimizing their customer data.
CSPs help piece together the measurement puzzle. According to survey respondents who say they use a CSP…
say that it allows their team to measure impact accurately
say it enables their team to use their data in a more impactful way
say it has streamlined the process of tracking impact metrics
→ Related: What are Success Metrics? How to measure KPIs in Vitally
Teams That Use CSPs Are More Likely to Grow
CSP users also aren’t experiencing the anxiety of shrinking resources the same way non-CSP users are. CSP users who responded to our survey were 41% more likely than non-users to report team growth in the past 12 months, and 63% said that their CSP has helped their team secure more budget.
of our respondents said their company experienced budget cuts over the past 12 months
of CSP users more likely than non-CSP users to report team growth over the past 12 months
Among the main benefits of CSP usage cited by our respondents…
of CSP users say it has helped their team spend more time on meaningful customer engagements
of CSP users say that using a CSP has significantly saved their team time on day-to-day work.
Even With the Right Tech, Challenges Remain
When we asked our experts where they still struggle when it comes to measuring Customer Success’s impact on revenue, some pointed to a lack of visibility around their customers’ revenue.
“Ultimately, the CS team's mission is to drive value,” Myles Bradwell said. “As value means something different to each customer, [CSP] reports often don’t tell us the full picture. While our data can help us understand who’s using our tool, it doesn’t have the ability to showcase how that usage is driving success for our customer’s business or role.”
Bodin Pollard agreed: “The thing that I wish CSPs could provide is a direct connection to customer-side data sources that show customer outcomes, rather than vendor outcomes. Product adoption/usage, CSAT, NPS, etc. are all vendor outcomes and aren’t evidence that your customer is getting what they think they’re paying for.”
Other Customer Success leaders struggle with separating CS impact from organizational impact.
“Correlation is not causation, and even if you have great retention and customer satisfaction, it can be difficult to prove that CS is the sole cause of that and not just an influencer of it,” Laura Kightlinger said. “Because creating successful customers is a total company effort, I have previously faced many questions about what specifically CS did to achieve high retention rates vs. what would have happened naturally because of a good product and excellent implementation team.”
Still, Customer Success leaders may be better off proving that their teams are pursuing the right strategy and activities, rather than trying to quantify the dollar value of what they do.
“Avoid perfectionism in reporting the numbers,” Pollard advises. “Calculating everything to the last cent is the CFO’s job, not yours. If you successfully connect high value activities to positive trends, the GRR & NRR calculations will take care of themselves and reflect well on you and your team.”
Part 05
Conclusion
Understanding revenue impact is the biggest mystery that Customer Success teams face today, but it also presents one of the greatest opportunities.
Our report suggests that with more reliable data and measurement tools, CS leaders could make better strategic decisions, secure resources for their teams, and even improve their job security.
Our survey respondents are well aware that connecting their efforts to revenue impact is critically important, with 78% of them saying they’re actively looking for better ways to track the revenue impact of their team’s activities.
But too many Customer Success leaders are currently flying blind; 38% of our respondents didn’t know their company's overall NRR for last year, and 73% didn't know their average monthly NRR for 2024 to date, despite a general consensus among our respondents that NRR was the most important CS revenue metric to track.
The main issue is the trustworthiness of their data; our respondents said data accuracy was the #1 challenge standing in the way of tying their efforts to revenue. As a result, 41% of our survey respondents experience at least some difficulty measuring CS’s impact to the company’s bottom line, and another 28% said they're unable to prove their team's revenue impact at all.
Fortunately, CSPs help piece together the puzzle. 84% of CSP users say that their software allows their team to measure impact accurately.
And despite a still-rocky business environment that has resulted in over 40% of our respondents' companies experiencing budget cuts over the past 12 months, CSP users were 41% more likely than non-CSP users to report team growth over that time period.
If your team is struggling with the blurred line between CS and revenue, Vitally can help bring it into focus. Our suite of reporting and analytics tools have helped B2B Customer Success teams around the world drive post-sales revenue and accurately measure impact.
Get a first-hand look at how Vitally helps CS organizations gain clarity around revenue
Part 06
About the Participants
Our survey was conducted from March 25th through April 29th, 2024, and featured 409 total respondents based in the United States, all employed full-time as B2B Customer Success leaders with direct oversight of a team.
409
Survey Respondents
39
years
Average Age of Respondents
Gender Breakdown
Number of Years Employed
Job Title
Company Size
Annual Revenue
About Vitally
Vitally is on a mission to help B2B companies improve productivity, collaboration, and impact in the Customer Success department and beyond. Our all-in-one Customer Success Platform serves as the single source of truth for customer data, and helps companies drive more revenue from CS efforts. Visit "Why Vitally" to learn how we're supporting the next generation of Customer Success.
